/dev/null for discarding output in Linux CLI - Interactive Code Practice

Practice - 5 Tasks

1fill in blank

easy

Complete the code to discard the output of the ls command.

Linux CLI

ls > [1]

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/dev/null

B/dev/zero

C/dev/stdout

D/dev/random

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using /dev/zero or /dev/random which are for input, not discarding output.

Redirecting to /dev/stdout which shows output instead of hiding it.

Redirecting output to /dev/null discards it, so nothing is shown or saved.

2fill in blank

medium

Complete the code to discard both standard output and standard error of the grep command.

Linux CLI

grep 'pattern' file.txt > [1] 2>&1

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/dev/null

B/dev/stdout

C/dev/random

D/dev/zero

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Redirecting only standard output but not standard error.

Using files like /dev/zero which do not discard output.

Redirecting both output and error to /dev/null hides all messages from the command.

3fill in blank

hard

Fix the error in the code to discard only the error messages of the cat command.

Linux CLI

cat missingfile.txt 2> [1]

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/dev/stdout

B/dev/null

C/dev/zero

D/dev/random

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Redirecting error to /dev/stdout which shows errors instead of hiding.

Using /dev/random or /dev/zero which are not for discarding output.

Redirecting standard error (2>) to /dev/null hides error messages while showing normal output.

4fill in blank

hard

Fill both blanks to discard standard output and standard error of the find command.

Linux CLI

find /path -name '*.txt' > [1] 2> [2]

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/dev/null

B/dev/stdout

C/dev/zero

D/dev/random

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Redirecting one stream to /dev/null and the other to a wrong file.

Using /dev/stdout which shows output instead of hiding.

Redirecting both standard output and error separately to /dev/null discards all output.

5fill in blank

hard

Fill both blanks to discard output and error of tar command and run it in background.

Linux CLI

tar -czf archive.tar.gz folder > [1] 2> [2] & disown

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A/dev/null

B/dev/stdout

D>/dev/null

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Adding extra arguments to disown which are not needed.

Redirecting output incorrectly with extra symbols.

Redirecting both outputs to /dev/null hides all messages. The disown command detaches the job; no extra argument is needed.